Young Merchants Learn About Business

A program called Kids, Inc. 2015 offered a great opportunity to young merchants ages 6 - 15 in Port Arthur, Texas at their Central Mall. According to Chelsea Henderson reporting in "The News Port Arthur", the young people were learning about marketing, packaging, and other aspects of business management. What a great idea. Why aren't these ideas taught in school as regular courses with this type of "hands on" learning as a graduation from the course?

The group in Texas included young people who sold cupcakes, puzzles, magnets, cell phone holders made from lego and of course, lemonade. However, this is not your usual small business that every kid tries. Take Travis and Aubyn Moore, 9 and 7 respectively who are selling phone and business card holders. They design them and their dad is the investor. They say business is booming. They've never been this busy.

Their father, David Moore, said as a business owner himself, he thought it was a terrific idea to give younger children an opportunity to start and run their own businesses.

“The packets they gave the kids when we got here has really led to some interesting conversations today,” David said. “It’s a lot of very basic and general information about how to run a business, and one of the things it hits on is customer service. Travis asked, ‘Well, what is that?’ and now he’s been working on his customer service skills all day.

“But I love this whole program, because no one really teaches kids about how to start a business. We’re talking about profits and losses, and figuring out how to turn their ideas into something that can give them spending money."

See more by clicking here.

Kayleigh Sadler, 9, of Groves poses in front of her business, Cupcake Concoctions, during the fourth annual Kids, Inc. entrepreneur program at Central Mall Saturday.

It seems like a great concept and I hope it will spread to other communities. Kids need more practical skills from their many hours in school, and what could be better than an activity where they are making money for themselves?

You Better be Selling This in Your Business Online

Doing business online (or offline for that matter) without doing "consistent" advertising and marketing is like winking at a girl in the dark...

...You know what you're doing, but nobody else does.

Yes, you can have the greatest product in the WORLD but if enough people aren't seeing it, then you're out of business.

You Better be Selling This in Your Business Online

And a simple fact of economics is this:
The cheaper your product, the more people will need to see it and buy it.
The more expensive the product, the less people you'll have to get to buy.

Obvious but hey, why are so many people just trying to sell cheap products?

Now, thinking back...
I'd practically kill to get my hands on some food I've had at a few different joints in the past.
...I mean amazing food!
But I can't, because they went out of business. Not because they weren't great (they were), but because "not enough people" knew how awesome they were.

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Now online this is super important to realize. There are millions and millions of websites begging for eyeballs.
And no telling how many new products and blogs are launched each day.
You've GOT to get seen! And you do that by marketing and advertising daily, following up and building the relationship daily, and yes, SELLING daily.

You're in business here, no doubt about it. And in business, that's what you do. You sell.
Now what's cool is in My Top Tier Business you're getting some of the top traffic strategies to getting sales on the internet.

This is what's working NOW. Not theory. Real testing and true traffic and advertising methods.
But we ONLY give these tactics away to you after you've learned the true economics of online business and we show you how to get to 6 figures this year and beyond.
That's what's possible when you know how to get traffic and have a converting funnel (we give you that too).

Hey, make a commission in 30 days or these guys will throw you $500 bucks just for going through the 21 Steps and applying them!
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Talk Soon,

Vicki, MTTB member

http://webbasedopportunities.com

Top QR Code Campaigns

Sometimes people will ask me, "Are these QR Codes just a passing fad or something really useful that will stick around?" Here's an article that will show you how big companies as well as smaller businesses are using them in an increasing number.

Marketers are constantly debating about whether or not QR codes are beneficial to their marketing efforts. Ultimately, Coca-Cola, Toys R Us and Walmart have proven that mobile bar codes are not only beneficial, but also crucial in driving consumer engagement.
Over the past few years there has been a love/hate relationship with QR codes. Nowadays, the campaigns have gotten more sophisticated and companies are constantly placing mobile bar codes on billboards, bus shelters and products.
To read the original click here.

The article goes on to feature the top 10 QR Code Campaigns in the U.S. Here are a few.

Cadillac
Cadillac placed mobile bar codes on its print campaign that promoted the carmaker’s XTS model and featured calls-to-action that gave users different experiences based on publication titles.
When users scanned the mobile bar code they were redirected to a mobile landing page where they could view videos or browse a photo gallery of the XTS model. By placing QR codes on its static print ads, Cadillac was able to bring the campaign to life
When users scanned the mobile bar code they were redirected to a mobile landing page where they could view videos or browse a photo gallery of the XTS model.
By placing QR codes on its static print ads, Cadillac was able to bring the campaign to life.

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is no stranger to QR codes. The company is constantly looking to make its campaigns better then the last and many times that involves mobile bar codes.
Earlier this year, the beverage giant placed QR codes on its packaging to further connect with new and existing customers.
This particular initiative took place in Spain.
Users were able to see calls-to-action placed on the packaging that invited consumers to scan to view content such as UEFA’s Euro 2012 videos and Coca-Cola SmileWorld – the brand’s online community.
Coca-Cola was smart to use mobile bar codes for the initiative, and even smarter to promote the campaign in a variety of ways, including a television commercial that illustrates how the initiative works.
Toys R Us
Toys R Us continued its QR code push to promote more than 20 of its large outdoor items and let consumers visualize how the product would work and look in their own backyards.
Since many of the outdoor items were too large to display in-store, Toys R Us used in-store signage that let consumers scan the QR code of a product in which they were interested.


Consumers could scan the mobile bar code next to the product with their mobile device to view video footage or images of the item fully set up.
Last year, Toys R Us rolled out a virtual store that let consumers scan QR codes featured on billboards and shop the company’s 2011 Hot Toy List.

Please note that all of these companies are using QR Codes and that the author of this article, Rima Kats in Mobile Marketer, is sometimes using the term, mobile bar code for QR Code. Indeed, the early QR Codes were bar codes and they are very much related, both in Japan where they were invented but everywhere else now too. The main difference is that a QR Code can contain  a huge amount of information. The latest versions or models can contain the equivalent of an encyclopedia (remember those?). Please see the article, "The Scoup on QR Codes" on this website for more information about QR codes.